


pivotal moment, perpetual bliss

by dinnfameron



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, But mostly kissing, David Rose is a Good Person, Dubious Consent, Humor, Light Angst, M/M, Magical Realism, POV David Rose, Patrick Brewer is Thirsty, Pining, So. Much. Kissing., Spells & Enchantments, Witches, david rose is also a dumb person, on account of the aforementioned witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:15:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26091736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinnfameron/pseuds/dinnfameron
Summary: “I can’t stop kissing him!” Patrick practically shouts, his hands flailing to indicate David. “Ever since I drank that tea you made, I’m all over him!”David bites his cheek. He won’t laugh. Now is not the time.“Did you want to kiss him?” Helga asks steadily.“That’s not – I mean – hey, I don’t–” Patrick blusters.“He did,” David says, nodding. “A little bit, yeah.”Patrick shoots him a betrayed look. “You did,” David says gently.+++When David attempts to get some witchy tea from Twyla's aunt to give himself and Patrick more confidence for the store opening, things don't exactly go according to plan.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 90
Kudos: 311





	pivotal moment, perpetual bliss

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the tags & summary, gentle reader. Patrick is not in control of his actions in this, so like, be aware of that. There's no sex, because dubious consent, but there is a lot of kissing/light petting with the same level of dubious consent. Nobody forces anyone to do anything, and it's not meant to be dark or triggering in any way, but this fic is not representative of what healthy consent looks like, is what I’m saying.
> 
> TL;DR: Don’t cast a spell on your friend/crush/business partner without their consent, folks.
> 
> Not beta'd. Apologies for any mistakes.

It’s coming up on the launch of the store, and David and Patrick are deep in conversation while they unpack some product, as is their wont. David lives for these confabs with Patrick, if he’s honest. Any topic is fair game: their pasts, their families, their awkward childhood embarrassments and inappropriate crushes, their hopes and fears about the store. It’s the last of these that’s weighing particularly heavy on David’s mind today.

“I wish I could, just, _know_ , you know?” David says, lining up the mint and tea tree shampoo on the counter. 

“Um, no,” Patrick says, teasing. “I’m going to need you to use more words.” 

David sighs the put-upon sigh of the long suffering. It’s not his fault Patrick has trouble following his non-sequiturs and half-formed thoughts. 

“The store,” he says obviously, twirling a wrist in the air. “I wish I could just fast-forward to the part where I know it’s a success. Or a failure. Either way. I just wish I could know.”

“Ah,” Patrick says, nodding. “Yeah, okay. I get that. But,” and he casts David a glance that lets David know the next words out of his mouth will somehow be both a joke and not a joke, “isn’t not knowing kind of the point? I mean, life is about the journey, not the destination, right?” 

David makes a gagging gesture as elegantly as he can. Which, he thinks, is pretty elegantly. It earns him a low chuckle from Patrick. 

“I don’t know, David,” Patrick continues, blinking earnestly, “maybe the real Rose Apothecary is the friendship we made along the way.” 

David rolls his eyes. 

“Okay, I’m sorry I’m not as sure of everything as you are,” he says. “I have an anxious bent; it’s my way.” 

“Hadn’t noticed,” Patrick says, scrunching up his nose at David. The two of them continue unpacking, side by side. When they’ve emptied the box, Patrick presses it flat and walks it out to the recycling bin in the alley behind the store, returning a moment later with yet another full box from the stockroom. 

“I’m not, you know,” he says after a beat of amiable silence, and David’s forgotten what they were talking about. 

“Not what?”

“Sure of everything,” Patrick clarifies. His tone is light but there’s tension in the way he’s all but yanking the tubs of citrus sage body scrub from the box. “I’m not sure the store will be a success.”

“Um, maybe this is something you should’ve told me before now?” David says, voice high and reedy. 

“No, that’s not - I don’t mean that I think it won’t succeed. Just, you can’t ever be sure about these things. I believe in the store. I hope it will be a success. But I don’t _know_ it will be.” 

“Oh, okay,” David allows, giving his panic a moment to ebb. “But you think it will be?” he asks hopefully. 

“I think we’ve got a good shot,” Patrick nods, and David supposes that’ll have to be enough. Patrick wouldn’t lie to him, he knows. That’s one of the things he liked most about his business partner, right from the beginning. Patrick is an honest man. So if he says he believes they have a good shot, then he does. 

David is fiddling with the layout of the products by the cash later that afternoon. He still can’t decide if the lip balm or the travel-sized goat’s milk hand lotion should be front and center. He’s leaning toward the lip balm. 

Patrick comes to stand across from him, drumming his fingers on the counter and peering out the window. 

“Are you nervous, then?” David asks. 

“What?” Patrick’s hands still. 

“About the opening?”

“Yeah, David. Yes. I’m nervous. Why wouldn’t I be nervous? This is big for us; this is–” Patrick seems to realize he’s dangerously close to rambling, which they’ve already established is David’s territory. He flashes David a sheepish smile. 

“Well, I’m sorry,” David says simply. 

Patrick stares blankly at him. “Why are you sorry?” 

“I’m sorry I acted like I was the only one who was nervous. Like I’m the only one who’s _allowed_ to be nervous.” David switches the basket of lip balms back to the outside of the counter. Squints at them. Switches them back next to the cash. “I feel like you’re always the one having to calm me down,” he goes on, “and that’s not really fair to you. You’re allowed to be anxious, too. I should have made space for that.” 

When he dares to glance up, Patrick is smiling at him. “You don’t have to apologize, David. We’re good. I like being the one who always has to calm you down. Calming you down calms me down, you know?” 

At first David thinks that no, he doesn’t know. But then he has a flash of Alexis looking hurt, and how it makes him feel to be the one who makes her laugh or tell her something nice about herself and see that quiet smile bloom on her face, and he thinks maybe he does know what Patrick means. 

“I just wish I could, like–” Patrick snaps his fingers. “And make us feel… sure, you know?”

“Confident,” David offers. 

“Yeah,” Patrick breathes. 

“Me, too.” 

+++++

At first, it’s just a niggle at the back of David’s mind. A quiet little niggling itch of an idea which he ignores. He ignores it as he’s walking home from the store, as he’s changing for dinner, as he’s walking to the cafe with his family. He ignores it while Alexis drones on and on about her high school classes and the latest drama at Ted’s clinic and as his mom and dad offer polite, strained questions about how things are going at the store. He’s better at ignoring it when his food comes and worse at ignoring it when his food is gone, and by the time they get back to the motel, and he’s cycling through his nighttime routine, he can’t ignore it any more. He peeks his head out of the bathroom. 

“Didn’t you tell me Twyla’s aunt or whoever was, like, a literal witch?”

Alexis is already settled into bed, the duvet draped gracefully at her hips, an old magazine from the motel lobby in her hands. 

“Mhm,” she affirms and flips a page. 

“Okay.” David goes back into the bathroom, rubbing gentle circles under his eyes to work the retinol cream in. He’ll have to wait for it to absorb before he moisturizes, so he steps back out into the bedroom. 

“So she, like, casts spells on people.” 

“I mean, I think so,” Alexis says without looking up. “Why? Do you want to ask her to give you a heart?”

“Go run with scissors,” David says on reflex. He should just drop it. He should drop the whole stupid thing. He perches on the end of Alexis’s bed instead. 

“Do you think she could, like, help someone have more confidence?”

Alexis looks up at him and narrows her eyes. “Help _someone_?”

“Like, if a hypothetical someone had, like, an important event coming up,” David makes small circles with his hands, “and they were nervous about it. Do you think she could give them something that would make them, um, more sure?”

“So just, like, a one-time confidence boost?”

“Just for a day or so. Long enough for, um, a business launch, for instance.” 

“Right, like a hypothetical business launch.” 

“That’s correct.”

“Of, like, a store?”

David squinches his eyes shut, nodding. “Mmhm.”

“Hmm. Maybe, David,” Alexis goes back to flipping her magazine pages, and David is grateful she’s choosing not to roast him for once. “I guess I could ask Twy.” 

“Okay, or don’t. I mean, it’s whatever.” David stands up and moves to the bathroom. “And, um, for Patrick, too,” he calls, unable to look at his sister. 

“Okay, yes, David. I will ask for a hypothetical person and for Patrick, too.” 

+++++

By the time the launch date rolls around, David’s practically forgotten about his stupid conversation with Alexis. He’s forgotten about most things, honestly, that aren’t the store and Patrick and his plans about the store and Patrick’s plans about the store and his and Patrick’s combined plans about the store.

So when there’s a loud, obnoxious banging on his door at an ungodly hour on the day of their soft opening, David has literally no expectations of who it could be. To his utter surprise, Alexis bounds out of bed and whips open the door like she was expecting just this turn of events. To David’s even utterer surprise, Twyla is the one standing on the other side of the door. 

“Did you–?” Alexis asks her. 

“Yeah-huh, got it,” Twyla says, beaming as she holds up two plastic baggies full of some type of plant substance. Alexis ushers her inside. 

“What is going on?” David asks. 

“David,” Alexis drags his name out to three syllables as she exchanges a glance with Twyla. “We got the stuff for you.” 

“What...stuff?” David says, and although he is intrigued, it’s also stupidly early. Twyla holds the bags up again, as though that should clarify things for him. It does not. “I’m not getting high with you two today,” he avows.

“No, David. It’s the–” Alexis casts a look around, even though there is very obviously no one else in the room. “The spell stuff. That you asked for – for the, you know, the store launch.” 

“What?” David says dumbly, though certain things are starting to come back to him now. 

“From my aunt!” Twyla adds excitedly. “She says this should help give you both the courage you need to achieve great things!” 

“Mhmm,” Alexis adds, giving David an exaggerated wink. 

“Oh, um,” David rolls himself out of bed and stands up, peering into the bags Twyla’s still holding. “So, it just – what, you eat it?”

“No, it’s a tea. You drink it.” 

“And it makes you more confident?”

“Yep!”

“Like, how much more confident?” 

“Oh, I don’t – the right amount, I guess?” Twyla looks a little deflated. 

“Okay, because I don’t want to be dancing naked on the counter next to the register, do I? Like, this isn’t Rodeo Drive, and I’m not Lindsey Lohan.” 

“David, you’re being really rude right now,” Alexis tells him. “Twyla’s aunt went out of her way to do this for you, so like. Do you want more confidence or not?” 

David gives the both of them another skeptical glance, before reaching out for the bags. “I mean, I guess, yeah. Thank you, Twyla. And tell your aunt thank you.” 

“Sure! No problem,” Twyla hands over the goods. “Uh, just make sure you give the right tea to the right person. They have your names on the bags, see? This one’s yours, and this is for Patrick.” 

“Um, so they’re not the same thing?”

“No they are, it’s just–” Twyla and Alexis exchange a glance. 

“David,” Alexis says gently, “I’m sorry, but like, you need way more confidence than Patrick does, okay? So yours is stronger.” 

“Oh, okay. No, that makes sense,” David agrees, offering his thanks to Twyla again.

He deposits the bags on the kitchenette counter in his parents’ room and heads back to his room to start getting ready for the day. Alexis heads out for her run, and he can swear there’s a twinkle of something in her eye when she wishes him luck for the opening, but he doesn’t have time to analyze if she’s actually excited for him or just hoping to see him fall flat on his face. 

He almost leaves the bags on the counter. Ingesting anything prepared by one of Twyla’s questionable kin is probably not a good idea. But, the anxiety is revving in his veins already, burning slightly between his shoulder blades, and he figures it couldn’t make things any worse, right? 

He brews the tea in accordance with the handwritten instructions Twyla had given him, pouring each concoction into a separate to go cup from the cafe that his family have kept to be washed out and reused repeatedly, because they’re the type of people who reuse things now. He carefully sharpies Patrick’s name on the correct lid, takes one last, sweeping look around his room, and carefully closes the door behind him. 

_It’s going to be okay,_ David tells himself on his short walk into town. _It’s all going to be okay._

The voice in his head sounds suspiciously like Patrick. 

+++++

David sets the teas on the counter as soon as he arrives at the store. The place looks nearly ready, just a few items scattered here and there that still need to be dealt with or stashed in the back. Patrick comes sweeping in from the stockroom, his energy frenetic and undirected, like a whirlwind. 

“God, David, I’m so nervous,” he breathes as he whips by. “I was up all night. I’m completely freaking out.”

David blinks at him. He knew Patrick was a little anxious about the opening, but this is a whole other level. Patrick is fidgeting, his leg bouncing as he sets out snacks, his pen drilling into the clipboard as he double-checks the checklist they’d painstakingly constructed for the opening. 

David doesn’t stop to consider what he’s doing as he makes his way to the counter and surreptitiously switches the lids on their cups. He hands Patrick the stronger of the two teas. 

“Here, drink this,” he says, keeping his voice casual. “You’ll feel better.” 

“What? Oh,” Patrick accepts the cup and takes a long drag. “Thanks, David. What kind of tea is this?”

“Uh, I don’t know, something herbal Twyla had. It’s supposed to help with anxiety,” David lies. Although, he supposes, it’s not that much of a lie. It is herbal, as far as he knows, and it should help with Patrick’s anxiety.

“Huh. It’s good,” is all Patrick says, taking another pull from the lid, and then he goes back to freaking out about the store. 

David doesn’t have much time to dwell with everything that’s going on, but he’s a little frustrated with Twyla and her aunt. The tea doesn’t seem to be doing anything for him. David supposes his anxiety could be worse, but his confidence level remains unboosted. He’s just as unsure about all of this as he’s been for weeks.

And though the wild, hurricane-like anxiety Patrick had exhibited earlier seems to have blown itself out, David doesn’t see much change in him either. Patrick always appears confident, and that’s certainly the case today. He’s confident in the way he upsells customers, the way he jabs the correct buttons on the register when he’s ringing up a sale, the way he throws his head back and laughs when he’s talking to Ray. But, David thinks to himself, when he has a quick moment to appraise his business partner in between bouts of sales and small talk, Patrick doesn’t seem more any more confident than usual. He just seems like… Patrick. 

“It’s going well, huh?” he asks Patrick under his breath during one of the rare moments the two of them are actually within five feet of each other. 

“Yeah, it’s going really well,” Patrick’s voice has that lilting sweetness he gets when he’s being sincere, and David wants to wrap himself up in the way it sounds. Which is… a weird thing to think about your business partner, but it’s where David’s at right now. 

David finishes wrapping up the purchase for the customer he’d been helping, handing it to her with a soft “have a nice day.” He spots Gwen checking out the bath salts across the room and decides to go help her, splaying a hand across Patrick’s shoulder so he can maneuver himself in the tight space behind the cash. Patrick turns toward him instead of away though, planting a kiss firmly on David’s cheek. 

David starts, blinking as he looks at Patrick. Patrick’s eyes are huge on his face. For a moment, he looks just as confused as David feels, then his mouth slants to the side in an embarrassed smile. David tries to smile back but can’t really be sure what his face does. He heads over to help Gwen, hoping his expression has settled into something normal-looking by the time he reaches her.

The rest of the day is too jam packed for David to spiral into a heretofore unknown plane of anxiety and over analyzation regarding Patrick’s kiss, thank God, or he’d probably be in a heap on the floor trying to make sense of it all. 

Patrick has always been physically affectionate with him, ever since they first met. He’s quick to offer an encouraging slap on the back, an assuring grip on David’s arm, an enthusiastic high five when they finally figure something out together. He’ll nudge David’s hip with his own when David is in his way and Patrick has his hands full with something or other. This was like that, probably. David’s pretty sure. It was just a quick kiss on the cheek on the day of their store opening, a celebratory little peck, like a little nothing kiss. It clearly did not Mean Something.

Dammit, why hasn’t David’s tea kicked in? He could definitely use some extra confidence right now. 

Finally, finally, their hours of operation run out and people slowly trickle out of the store until it’s just the two of them. David’s ears are ringing, like when you’ve just walked out of a loud club onto a quiet street. The skin on his back feels tacky with dried sweat and his undershirt clings to him unpleasantly. He can’t wait to get into a very long, very hot shower and follow up with an extra thorough moisturizing moment. It’s been a long, weird, wonderful day. 

He’s tired, exhausted really, and he can see the same exhaustion mirrored in Patrick’s eyes. They fall into their usual bickering routine with a practiced ease as they run through the closing procedure for the first time. Patrick snipes something about how much richer they’d be if they hadn’t offered a discount, and David volleys right back that they wouldn’t have sold as much if they didn’t have the exclusivity of the friends and family discount to entice people. 

“Well, the good news is, we never have to talk about it again because we’re officially open,” Patrick offers, though he looks smug.

“True,” David acquiesces, and steps into Patrick’s arms when he opens them for a hug. 

“Congratulations, man,” Patrick murmurs. 

“Congratulations to you,” David replies. The two of them stand there, holding each other, for what feels to David like a really long time. Patrick is lax in his arms, his body fitting along David’s perfectly, and David bites down on a smile. 

Finally, he feels Patrick start to pull away, and David follows suit. Before he can register the change in Patrick’s momentum, though, Patrick has grabbed David’s shoulders and pressed a soft, sure kiss to his mouth. Patrick lingers there for a moment, and David is just considering kissing him back, when he feels Patrick pull away again. Patrick takes a full step back, his face an almost comical mask of surprise. 

“David, I’m – I’m so sorry.” Patrick looks mortified, and David tries not to take it personally, like kissing him would be such a horrible thing that one would need to feel mortified about it. 

“It’s okay,” David says softly. Because it is. Patrick can kiss him anytime he likes; he has that level of access to David, has always had it, whether he knows it or not. 

“I don’t know why I did that,” Patrick says, shaking his head. He blinks like he’s trying to wake himself up, or like he just has woken up, and he’s trying to figure out where he is. David knows the feeling. 

“It’s okay,” David says again, more firm. “It’s been a long day. You’re tired and there’s just,” he waves his hands between the two of them and around at the store in general, “there’s a lot of emotion.”

“Yeah,” Patrick sighs, rubbing a hand over his eyes. 

“And hey, I’ve had worse kisses,” David says, teasing, because he needs Patrick to know that they’re okay. That they can still tease and joke. Anything to get the panic out of Patrick’s eyes. 

“Oh, same, for sure,” Patrick jokes back, and a bit of the tension seems to drain from his shoulders. 

“I, um, I’m gonna go?” David doesn’t mean it to sound like a question. “Back to the motel.” 

“Yeah, we should get some sleep. We officially have a store to run now.”

“Yes, we do,” David nods. 

“Okay, so I’ll see you in the morning? Bright and early?” That teasing tone is back in Patrick’s voice, to David’s relief. 

“Mmm, two adjectives that don’t really work for me, but yes. I will be here.”

As he’s walking home from the store, David wonders if his tea might have kicked in, just slightly. Because Patrick may not have meant to kiss him, may not have wanted to, really. But he did it. David now knows what it feels like to be kissed by Patrick Brewer, albeit briefly, and he’s feeling, well, pretty damn confident. 

It honestly doesn’t occur to him then that Patrick’s tea might have kicked in, too. 

+++++

David’s having a really weird dream. He’s back in their old house, and there’s been some kind of alien invasion? He’s not really sure what’s going on. But there’re all these military guys shouting at him and trying to give him a gun to protect himself, except David doesn’t want a gun, and he keeps telling them this, but they won’t listen to him. And then there’s this brown dog there all of the sudden, who tells David that he’ll keep him safe. So David follows the dog, because like, what else is he going to do? He follows the dog through the house and he can hear gunshots going off in all different directions. And then the gunshots are getting louder and coming on faster and the dog is saying “David, David” and something hits him in the face and– 

David sits up in bed. Okay, so Alexis might’ve been the one saying “David,” and the thing that hit him in the face might’ve been one of her slippers, and the gunshots might actually have been the sound of someone knocking quietly but incessantly at the door.

“Answer the door, David!” Alexis practically shouts at him from where she’s buried beneath her covers. 

“What? Why do I have to answer the door? It could be a serial killer,” David points out. 

“David!” Alexis shrills. 

“David?” a soft voice calls through the door, and okay, not a serial killer, David realizes. He answers the door. 

“Patrick?” 

Patrick is outside his door in sleep pants and a t-shirt, looking massively stressed out. He’s not even wearing shoes. 

“David, thank God,” Patrick says, and before David can respond, Patrick’s grabbing his face in both hands and kissing him. Again.

“Oomph,” David says eloquently, Patrick still pressed against his mouth. David fumbles for Patrick’s shoulders and pushes firmly. “Okay, hi, let’s go outside?” he whispers, managing to steer Patrick away from the door so that he can step out onto the sidewalk. He pulls the door closed softly behind him. When he turns his attention back to Patrick, he’s wearing the same shocked, embarrassed face as before. 

“What’s going on?” David asks. His voice sounds gruff and raspy to his own ears.

“Oh my god, David, I’m so–”

“Sorry?” David offers. He crosses his arms tightly to ward off the sudden cold. “Yeah. You’ve said.” 

“I don’t even known why I came here.” Patrick looks a touch hysterical. “I just – I was thinking about you, and then I just got in the car and – it was like I couldn’t control it. Like I was on autopilot.” 

“What does that mean?” David asks, concerned. “Like, you lost time? Did you hit your head? Did you take something?”

“What? No,” Patrick puts a hand on David’s shoulder, gripping it and rubbing his thumb along David’s collar like he needs the touch to tether himself to reality. David lets him. “I wasn’t… blacked out, I just. I couldn’t think about anything else.” 

“Anything else but what?” 

Patrick looks at him and his expression is unlike anything David’s seen on his face before. Fear and dread and fondness and… heat. 

“Oh no, David, I’m–” and Patrick’s kissing him again. He presses into David’s space, pulling at David’s jaw until he’s got him at the right angle and pressing his tongue along the seam of David’s lips. The wet heat of it surprises a gasp out of David, and then Patrick’s licking into his mouth and, okay, David does kiss him back a little. He’s only human, after all. But he pushes Patrick away again after a brief moment. Pretty brief, he thinks. A hell of a lot briefer than he would have preferred, anyway. 

“I’m sorry,” Patrick whispers, resting his forehead against David's. “I’m sorry.” He says it over and over, like a litany, his eyes closed. David runs a soothing hand up and down Patrick’s back.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” David shushes him. “Stop saying you’re sorry. I’m okay.” 

“David, I don’t know what’s happening. I can’t stop,” Patrick says. 

“What are you talking about?” David says quietly, trying to understand. 

“I don’t – it’s not usually like this.” Patrick nuzzles into his neck. The mixed signals are enough to make David’s head spin. 

“Like what? Patrick, talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”

“When I… think about kissing you,” Patrick says reluctantly. “When I think about kissing you, it’s not usually like this, but now, it’s like – I can’t _not_ do it.” He makes a small noise in the back of his throat, a wounded sort of animal noise. “When I think about kissing you, it’s like I _have_ to do it.” 

“Um, okay, there’s a lot to unpack there,” David says as Patrick starts pressing tiny little kisses along his neck. “And that’s distracting.” He nudges Patrick away as gently as he can, because he is a goddamn saint, and laces their fingers together, holding their entwined hands up in front of Patrick’s face. “What if we just held hands?” he asks. “Could you maybe just think about holding hands with me, and see if that, um, does it?” 

“What?” Patrick blinks a few times before his gaze focuses on their hands. “Oh. Okay, yeah, I can try.” 

“Okay,” David breathes. He leans back against the cold exterior of the motel, and Patrick does the same, his body close enough that David can feel the heat coming off of him. When David looks over at him, Patrick is still staring at their joined hands. 

“So you… think about kissing me,” David starts. 

“Oh, god,” Patrick groans, and even in the dim light from the motel’s one sad light pole David can see he’s blushing. “I mean, this is not how I imagined you finding out, but yes. Occasionally.” 

“Hm. Occasionally,” David echoes. 

“Or, semi-regularly,” Patrick admits. 

“I see,” David whispers, trying to keep the laughter out of his voice. He feels giddy with this new information, but now is not the time for teasing; Patrick is clearly distressed and experiencing some sort of psychological fugue state or something. 

“This is so embarrassing,” Patrick says. 

“Oh, no, I disagree.”

Patrick glances askew at him. “Yeah?”

“It’s definitely, um, something,” David arches an eyebrow. “But you shouldn’t be embarrassed.” 

“What should I be, then?”

“I don’t know, curious? I am. Like, why is this happening?”

“Oh wow, David, you’ve cracked it. If only I had stopped to ask myself ‘why is this happening?’ I could’ve solved it hours ago...”

“Hours? Oh, so at the store?”

“Yes, and um, before. The, um, the kiss on your cheek?” 

“Huh. Okay, yes, that did seem a little strange at the time.” 

Patrick shrugs. “I thought about doing it, and then I just did it. I thought maybe I was just swept up in the – the day, you know?”

“But you didn’t kiss me on the lips, then,” David points out. 

“We were surrounded by the entire town, David,” Patrick counters. “Everyone we know. I wasn’t thinking about kissing you on the lips.” 

“Oh,” David keeps getting distracted by the way Patrick’s thumb is running delicately over David’s knuckle where their hands are wrapped together between them. “Um, so walk me through it, then. Like, how does it work? You think about kissing me, and then it just, happens?”

“Not sure we should talk about this, David.” Patrick’s voice is tight. 

“Why not?” 

“Because if I think about kissing you, I’m not sure I can–” Patrick makes an aborted gesture with his hand. 

“Oh, well, it’s okay,” David says, keeping his voice casual. “I’ll stop you before it gets, um – I’ll stop you.” 

Patrick lets out a breath, his head falling back to land against the motel’s exterior with a soft thump. 

“Okay, well, yeah. Basically, I think about kissing you, and if I don’t do it right away, then it’s like – it’s like holding your breath. Like, at first it’s fine, and then it’s a little uncomfortable but nothing you can’t handle, you know? But then it starts, like, burning, and then there’s this panic and I feel like, like I’m going to die if I don’t kiss you.”

“Wow,” David whispers. “That sounds intense.” 

“David, I drove over here, barefooted, at two a.m. because I had to see you,” Patrick says. “It’s intense.” Patrick’s eyes are looking a little dark, David notices, his pupils dilated as he gazes back at David. He starts to lean in, his gaze flicking down to David’s lips and– 

“Hands!” David says, his voice reverberating in the open space as he jerks his and Patrick’s hands back up in front of Patrick’s face. “We’re holding hands now. That’s what we’re doing, right now, at this time.” 

“Oh. Right.” Patrick shoots him a grateful smile. “Hands.” He goes back to gazing at their hands as David draws a shaky breath. 

“So was that, um, when you kissed me on the cheek, was that the first time you thought about…doing that?”

“Oh no, I think about it all the time. I have since the day we met,” Patrick says, then his eyebrows shoot up and his eyes go wide as he peers at David. “And apparently I just don’t have a filter anymore,” he adds, shaking his head with an embarrassed smile. 

David quirks a smile at him. “So that little admission is something we’re going to need to discuss further once we’ve figured this whole thing out.”

Patrick doesn’t say anything. Just switches his focus back to their joined hands. 

“Okay, so it started at the store today,” David says, thinking it through to himself. “Even though you’ve thought – things – before, today was the first time you felt like you had to – do things.” 

“That’s correct,” Patrick affirms. 

It takes David an embarrassingly long time to remember why today of all days might have been different. To be fair, he is very, very tired. 

“After you drank the tea…” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. 

“Yeah, I guess,” Patrick says. “You know, actually, it’s funny. Twyla told you that tea would help with anxiety?” 

“That’s funny?” David asks. 

“Well, kind of. It’s just, when I kiss you I don’t feel any anxiety. I feel… sure.” 

“Sure?” David whispers, his stomach filling with dread. Did he… maybe… make a mistake, here? 

“Yeah, you know.” Patrick is back to running his thumb over David’s knuckle. “Like, confident. Brave. Sure.” 

Goddammit, Alexis. And Twyla. And Twyla’s Baba Yaga wannabe aunt. 

“Huh. That is so funny.” David’s voice has gone high again. He has to fix this as soon as humanly possible. “You know what, Patrick? I think you should maybe head back to Ray’s now.”

The heartbroken look Patrick gives him would be funny if it weren’t so – well, heartbreaking. 

“Oh. Okay, I guess.” Patrick makes no move to separate himself from David at any of the points at which they’re touching. 

“It’s okay, you’ll see me in the morning.” 

“Yeah, I know.” Patrick lets out a shaky breath. “It’s just…what if I have another thought? I’m afraid I’m going to be right back over here.” 

David considers. He could just let Patrick come inside. The two of them could try to get some sleep between kisses. The idea sounds very appealing to about 90% of David’s brain. But that stubborn 10% knows that he has to be the one to set boundaries here. Patrick certainly isn’t capable of doing so right now, and besides, having David around will probably make it harder for Patrick to resist thinking _thoughts,_ not easier. 

“Why don’t we try this,” David says sweetly, trying to be as encouraging as he can. “Why don’t you just make yourself think about kissing me in the morning? Like, just think of it as something you’re _going_ to do. And then, when we get to the store, um, you can just kiss me and – and it’ll be done.” 

Patrick looks torn, but after a moment, he flashes David a weak smile. “Yeah, that could work.” His face falls. “But you don’t have to let me kiss you in the morning, David. It’s not fair that you have to…Christ, I’m practically forcing myself on you–” 

“No, hey,” David turns toward him, dropping Patrick’s hand so he can grip both of his shoulders. “That’s not what this is. Don’t apologize, first of all, because none of this is your fault. And I don’t – I don’t mind letting you kiss me.”

“Really?” Patrick actually looks doubtful, bless him.

David shrugs one shoulder. “You’re a good kisser.” 

The laugh Patrick huffs out at that almost makes up for how incredibly ashamed David feels at having put his business partner in this position. Almost. 

“Well, as long as you’re enjoying yourself, then,” Patrick says, his face hopeful as he searches David’s own. David tries to convey that he’s really not scandalized by all of this as he smiles back at Patrick, that they’re really okay. 

Which, he supposes, they are. But David also needs Patrick to leave so that he can go back inside and murder his sister without any witnesses. 

“Okay, here,” David places a hand on either side of Patrick’s face and leans in, kissing him gently. Patrick is already pressing back eagerly as David pulls away and it is one of the stronger tests of willpower he can remember ever having not to deepen the kiss. 

“That’s to, um, tide you over,” David tells him, patting his chest. “Until tomorrow.” 

“Until tomorrow,” Patrick echoes. Without another word, David turns him in the direction of his car and gives his shoulders a little push. Thankfully, Patrick goes without a fight. David waits until he’s pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road before he goes back inside. 

“Wake the fuck up, Alexis!”

+++++

“Hey, Aunt Helga! It’s Twyla! I’m afraid we’ve got a bit of a problem…” 

Twyla is way too bubbly for this time of day, David thinks as he watches her flit back and forth behind the counter. Truth be told, he doesn’t really trust morning people. How does one just… not need several hours to overcome one’s existential dread at the start of every day? Like, you wake up and you simply… start doing things? It’s not normal behavior, and it’s not to be trusted, in David’s opinion.

In Twyla’s defense, David is majorly sleep deprived and thus naturally bitter toward anyone displaying a modicum of energy. In Twyla’s offense, she’s at least 33% responsible for his current sleep deprived state. The remaining two-thirds of blame can probably be split equally between himself and Alexis. 

It was David’s own fault for coming up with this hare-brained scheme in the first place. He’s man enough to admit that. But. It was most certainly _not_ his fault that Alexis and Twyla had clearly asked for the wrong spell. Or Twyla’s aunt had screwed it up when she was making it, or something.

David’s tea, which was supposed to be Patrick’s tea, had had no effect on him, while Patrick’s tea, which was meant to be David’s, had turned Patrick into some sort of kiss-crazed maniac. (Not that that was really a problem for David, but you know, it was a principle thing.) 

“You weren’t supposed to give it to Patrick, David!” Alexis had screamed at him when he’d confronted her about her _obvious_ mistake, like this was somehow his fault (which, yes, it was, but not _entirely_ ). 

“He was more anxious than me!” David had countered. “You said it was for whoever needed the most confidence. _You_ said that!”

“Ugh, stop, David!”

So here they were, at the café before it was even technically open, waiting for Twyla to straighten this whole thing out with her aunt. Her aunt was somehow not home, though, so instead of getting answers, David had to sit here and listen to Twyla leave a message on the woman’s answering machine like it was 1997. 

“Okay, so hopefully she’ll call back soon,” Twyla says, hanging up the phone. “The good news is there shouldn’t be any additional side effects to Patrick taking it instead of David. Confidence spells aren’t usually designed for one specific person.” 

“Okay,” David sighs. 

Alexis slaps him on the arm. “See, David?”

“Stop,” David seethes at her. He turns back to Twyla. “Do you have any idea when it will wear off?” 

“Hmm,” Twyla tilts her head, considering. “Typically the effects of something like this don’t last that long.” She flashes him a grin. “I’d say Patrick will be back to normal in a week or so.” 

“Yay!” Alexis cheers over David’s horrified “a week!” 

“No, Twyla, no. Patrick can’t be like this for a week. He’ll kill me. Like, literally, figuratively, and in more ways than one.” 

“Ew,” Alexis says.

Twyla worries at her lip. “No, yeah, I can see where it might be a problem, and honestly Patrick seems to be way more affected by this than you’d normally see with a confidence spell – it could take longer.”

“Longer,” David breathes. 

“I could see if my aunt could make a counterspell for him? Something to undo it?” 

“Yes! A counterspell, yes, let’s do that.”

“Okay, well I’ll text you as soon as I know something. But I really do have to open the café soon, guys.” Twyla busies herself with the coffee maker. 

“Oh, totally. Thanks, Twy.” Alexis hops off her stool and bounces out the door like she doesn’t have a care in the world.

David definitely still has a few cares, though. 

He doesn’t see a point in going back to the motel when he’ll just have to be back at the store in another hour or so. Instead, he aims his feet toward the Apothecary, thinking things through as he trudges along. 

David hopes the caramel macchiato with an extra shot he’d had Twyla make for him will help him stay vertical throughout the day, at least. He wishes he could blame Patrick, whose kisses playing over and over in his mind all night kept David from any hope of falling back to sleep. But it’s very unfair to blame Patrick for any part of this. 

David assumes, once he comes clean to the man in question, Patrick will agree with him. 

David doesn’t want to think about how mad Patrick will be. David _cast_ a _spell_ on him, _fuck_. He’s seen the terrible 80s movies with this exact plot. He should know better. He hopes Patrick won’t leave him– the store, that he won’t leave the store. Their friendship might hurt for a while, but David thinks maybe he could salvage it? With time? Like a lot of time and gifts and favors? Maybe he could wash Patrick’s car every week for a year or something. How does one wash a car? There must a YouTube tutorial he could watch. 

How many car washes equal one spell gone awry?

David arrives at the store much too soon for his liking, and there’s a weird sort of twinge in his chest when he sees that he’s not the first one there. 

Patrick is hovering just inside the door, and when he spots David his whole face lights up. He opens the door for David. 

“Hi, David,” he says. 

“Hi,” David breathes. He had hoped that the effects of the tea might’ve worn off, at least a little, despite Twyla’s prediction. But as he peers into Patrick’s hopeful, happy face, he thinks that isn’t super likely. “So, you’re still…?” he waves a hand, encompassing Patrick’s person, and raises his eyebrows.

“Definitely, yes,” Patrick confirms. “I could not sleep last night, like at all.” 

David winces. “Sorry.” 

“No, it’s okay. It actually, uh, it worked.” Patrick shrugs. “I just thought about, um, doing it this morning. And it helped. I didn’t feel so,” he shakes a hand out, “panicky, you know?”

“Oh. That’s… good?” 

“Yeah.” Patrick is watching David closely, looking a little unsure and a lot impatient, and it takes David a moment to piece it together. He’d promised that Patrick could kiss him when he got to the store. 

“Oh, okay, so,” David starts. He looks around. They’re literally standing right in front of the door, and although it’s early, and the streets are still pretty quiet, anyone who happened by would be able to see. He takes Patrick’s hand. “Come with me?”

Patrick follows him without question, trailing along behind him as David makes his way to the stockroom. As soon as they’re both fully off the sales floor, David turns around and Patrick is like _right there_ , his gaze fixing on David’s mouth in an instant. 

“David–” he starts. 

“I swear to god, if you apologize right now–” and whatever threat David was about to make gets swallowed up in Patrick’s mouth closing over his, and David’s intention was to not let it get too far, but. Okay, he maybe lets it go a little further than is strictly professional. And he knows, he _knows_ , it’s not right to take advantage of Patrick in his present… state. But he’s so tired, and Patrick feels amazing, all warm and sure as his mouth moves against David’s with just the tiniest hint of edge in the way he scrapes his teeth along David’s bottom lip or grips David’s hair at the base of his skull. 

So, yes, he loses himself in the kiss a little bit. He’s not proud of it. 

“Okay, okay,” he breathes when Patrick breaks the kiss to mouth his way up David’s jaw. David wraps a hand around Patrick’s bicep. He doesn’t push Patrick away, but Patrick gets the message anyway, dropping one last kiss to a spot just below his ear and taking a step back. 

“Thank you, David,” he breathes. 

David laughs ruefully. “Oh, don’t thank me yet.” He takes a step back, too, needing to be able to look Patrick full in the face when he tells him the truth. Patrick leans in like he’s going to close the space David’s just created between them, but he catches himself at the last moment and sways back. 

“No, I do have to thank you,” Patrick goes on. “You didn’t – you could have – I would have freaked, if it was – no, well, that’s not true, probably, but – you’ve been so nice about all of this, David. You’ve been–” Patrick looks around like he’ll find the correct adjective there in the stockroom between the bamboo socks and the jars of locally sourced honey. “You’ve been so helpful. There’s no way I could’ve gotten through the last twenty-four hours without you.” 

“Mm, well, you wouldn’t have gotten _into_ the last twenty-four hours without me either, so,” David says. 

“What?”

David takes another step away from Patrick. Here it comes, the downfall of their friendship. The disassociation of their business partnership. And the end of some really, really solid kissing. David waves his hands in front of himself, suddenly feeling very unsettled. 

“Okay, so I may have made a mistake.” 

Patrick’s gaze on him is inscrutable. “Okay.” 

“In my defense, my intentions were good.”

“Okay,” Patrick repeats, a little more encouragingly. 

“But, um, it was definitely a mistake, one which I take full responsibility for, alongside Alexis and Twyla, and Twyla’s aunt. But still, mostly my fault, and I’m very sorry.” 

Patrick looks amused now, and David wishes on all wishable things that he could just leave it there, let Patrick be amused by his idiocy forever. 

“What did you do, David?” he asks. 

“I, um, may have, accidentally, and unintentionally, and without realizing it–“

“Those all mean the same thing.” 

“Cast a spell on you?” David mumbles it out as fast as he can, like ripping off a Band-Aid. 

“You did what now?” 

“I _may_ have… cast a spell on you.”

Patrick looks confused now. “That’s – who are you, Dumbledore? That’s not a real thing.” 

“Um, no, okay, but Twyla’s aunt is a witch. And so I asked her to make us something for the store launch. Well, Alexis and Twyla asked her on my behalf. It was supposed to make us more confident! But, um, instead it did” David waves another hand indicating Patrick’s general personage “this.”

Patrick’s brow has been furrowing lower and lower with each sentence out of David’s mouth, but once he’s finished speaking, Patrick’s lips curl in a smile. 

“Funny,” he says, stepping in and dropping a quick peck on David’s lips before he’s even realizing what’s happening. 

“Okay, no,” David steps back, a finger in the air between them, like he’s fending Patrick off with a cross or something. Like David is the Slayer and Patrick’s a vamp, which, okay, David needs to sleep very soon. These metaphors are getting out of control. 

“David, I’m sorry.” Patrick looks deeply ashamed and a little hurt. “I didn’t even realize I was going to do it. You just, you’re so cute when you get like that,” he says helplessly. 

“Okay, ugh.” David looks up to the heavens, hoping for some assistance. But the nondescript ceiling of the stockroom offers him nothing. “I’m not – I’m not mad about you kissing me, Patrick. I like the kissing. I wish the kissing could go on forever, but it won’t because eventually the effects of the tea will wear off and you’ll just be pissed that I did this to you.” He starts pacing, needing somewhere to focus his nervous energy. “And I can’t even blame you, because I’m pissed that I did this to you, too! Because now I know that you thought about kissing me ‘semi-regularly’ and maybe one day we could’ve done something about that, but now that won’t happen because you’ll hate me forever for casting a literal spell on you!” He stops abruptly on the last word, spinning on his heel to face Patrick again, his arms splayed out to his sides in frustration.

Patrick takes another step toward him. For a second, panic flairs in David’s stomach that Patrick’s going to kiss him again and this is just going to be his life for the next week or until Twyla’s aunt comes up with a counterspell or until David dies from excess emotions, whichever comes first.

Except Patrick doesn’t kiss him; he just lays his hands on David’s shoulders. 

“Okay, breathe,” he says softly into the space between them, and David does. He breathes deeply for several moments, staring into Patrick’s unblinking eyes, his unflinching face, his unfaltering reliability. Eventually, the panicked feeling fades.

“So that was a lot of words,” Patrick says after a while, running his hands along David’s shoulders. 

“Yeah,” David agrees. 

“I’m getting the sense that you meant them?”

“Yes,” David nods, his eyes slipping closed. “Mhm.” 

“So you think you…actually cast a spell on me?”

“Do you have a better explanation for your current situation?”

Patrick gives his head a little shake. “I don’t, but. Come on, David. Magic?”

David shrugs helplessly, which turns out awkward with Patrick’s hands still on his shoulders. 

“Okay, okay,” Patrick says, and David can see the gears working as he thinks it through. “Give me your hand.”

“What?”

“Hands, David. If I’m supposed to think about this and not, other things, I need us to be holding hands.” 

“Oh, yeah, okay,” David slips his hand into Patrick’s, who immediately laces their fingers together, looking relieved. 

“Okay, magic,” Patrick closes his eyes. He immediately snaps them open, cutting a sharp glance at David. “Wait, did you say tea?”  
  
“Yeah, the tea I gave you yesterday.” 

“The herbal tea? That was supposed to help with anxiety?”

“Well, see, technically that wasn’t a lie, because it was herbal and it was–“

“You _drugged_ me?” 

“ _Us_ , I drugged _us_ ,” David corrects. 

“So you drank the same tea?”

“…I drank _a_ tea.” 

“Then why aren’t you trying to kiss me?” Patrick seems to realize something as soon as he’s said it, his expression closing off so fast it’s like someone switched off a light. “Oh.” 

“What?” David asks, lost as to what conclusion Patrick’s just come to. 

“Nothing. So who did you, um. Who were you thinking about…? And how come you can control it so well?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“The tea, the – the spell,” Patrick clears his throat. “You’re not chasing some poor guy all over town trying to kiss him, so how did you make it stop?”

“Oh, that’s not–” David tries to figure out how he’s going to explain this part. “I honestly don’t know.”

Patrick squints at him. “But you said you drank the tea, too?”

“Okay, yes, I did, but it didn’t work. Or, I don’t think it did. It was supposed to boost my confidence, but I didn’t feel any different.” 

Patrick gives him a long, unreadable look. “So how come you got the confidence boosting spell, and I got the irrepressible urge to kiss spell?”

“I don’t know.”

“David!” That’s officially Patrick’s irritated voice. 

“I don’t know! I asked, very clearly, for two confidence boosting, um, potion… things. They were supposed to be the same.”

From the look on Patrick’s face, he can tell David is holding something back, so David goes on. 

“Alexis and Twyla, however, asked for one to be made stronger, for me. Because I’m the one who’s more, you know, lacking in the confidence department. Of the two of us.”

Patrick’s brow furrows at that, but he doesn’t interrupt. 

“But then, when I got to the store yesterday, you were so freaked out. And I mean, I felt nervous, but I didn’t feel _that_ nervous, so I just – I switched our cups. I thought maybe you needed the stronger one more than me.” 

“So I’m like this because I got more confidence than you?”

“I don’t know,” David says again, his voice softer now. “Twyla said it was hitting you different than confidence spells usually do. I think her aunt might have screwed something up.” 

“You think?” Patrick says sarcastically, and David purses his lips in an apology. 

The silence in the stockroom stretches out between them unbearably until, finally, Patrick opens his mouth again. 

“So. You didn’t give me a kissing potion on purpose.”

“No, of course not.”

“You were trying to help. With the store opening.” 

“Yeah, yes, I was. Look, I know, obviously, now, in hindsight, it was a bad idea. Like, the whole thing. But yes, I was trying to help.” 

Another long look from Patrick. 

“Okay,” he says. 

And now it’s David’s turn to add a dramatic pause to this conversation, because did he just hear what his ears are telling his brain he just heard? 

“…Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay, David.” 

“How are you – how is _any_ of this okay?”

“I mean, it isn’t, obviously, like you said. But… I don’t know. We’re in it now. All we can do at this point is ride it out, right?” 

“Yeah, well, I mean, Twyla’s aunt is supposed to be working on a counterspell.” 

“Wait, so until I get a counterspell, I’m just stuck like this?” 

“No, it wears off in a week.”

“A week!”

“Or longer.”

“Longer!”

“No, I know. That’s why I asked for the counterspell. To hopefully speed it up.” 

“Oh,” Patrick breathes, his eyes still wide. “Okay.” 

“Okay,” David says. He feels weirdly relieved. He’d told Patrick the truth. He’d made a mistake and come clean about it, and the roof hadn’t fallen on him. Patrick didn’t hate him. Patrick probably would have a few choice words for him when this was said and done, but he wouldn’t _hate_ him, David didn’t think. They would be okay. Eventually. David felt it; he could tell. 

“Thank you for telling me the truth, David,” Patrick says finally. 

“You’re welcome.”

“And hey, here’s something.”

“What?” 

“I really don’t want to kiss you right now.”

“Oh.” 

“Like, at all.” 

“No, that’s fair.” 

Patrick unlaces their fingers and, though his face isn’t screaming with some unquenchable urge to kiss David, he doesn’t exactly look pissed either. He looks tired and a little done with everything, but not pissed. David’s grateful for small miracles. 

“I’m going to go grab breakfast at the café before we open.” Patrick grabs his keys off the hook by the door and heads out of the stockroom. “So glad Twyla knows about all this, by the way.” 

“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to get some breakfast for me?” David calls after him. 

“Nope!” Patrick shoots over his shoulder on his way out the door. 

“I deserve that,” David says to the empty stockroom. 

+++++

Patrick lasts all of four hours, which is pretty impressive, David thinks. 

David has just wrapped up a grapefruit scented soy candle for a customer, waving cheerfully at her as she leaves, when he feels arms wrapping around his waist and a warm, solid presence at his back. 

“Oh, what’s this?” he says. 

“Shut up,” Patrick says in his ear. 

“I thought you didn’t want to kiss me.”

“David,” Patrick’s voice is a warning, but he should know by now that usually has the opposite effect on David.

“Like, at all.”

Patrick spins David around. David stumbles a little, but recovers, and Patrick is pressing him into the counter, crowding in close. 

“Wait, wait,” he says, and is almost a little surprise that Patrick actually does. He stills, though his eyes remain glazed over as he gazes up at David. 

“What?” Patrick breathes. 

“Let’s go in the back,” David says gently. “We’re a little, uh, exposed out here.” David looks pointedly at the window. 

“Oh, yeah,” Patrick says distractedly, as though the thought that the entire town could see them hadn’t occurred to him. 

David lays his palms on Patrick’s shoulders and walks him backward into the stockroom. As soon as they’re both over the threshold, Patrick grabs him by the waist again and pulls him in close, practically attacking David’s mouth with his own. 

David tries to kiss back, but Patrick is kissing him so desperately David has to more or less just hang on for the ride. He winds his arms around Patrick’s neck and leans in, trying to use his height advantage to slow Patrick down a little. Patrick makes a desperate, needy noise in the back of his throat and presses in even closer to David, hips bucking wildly. 

“Jesus,” David takes a small step back, gasping. Patrick chases him and catches his mouth in a kiss again. His hands slide down to grab at David’s ass and he uses the newfound leverage to angle their bodies together again. Patrick is so close, their bodies fitting together in a perfect seam, and he’s so hot that David feels scalded. He pulls away again, laying a firm hand in the center of Patrick’s chest. 

“Patrick,” he says, his voice loud in the small space. Patrick’s eyes snap open and David watches him come back to himself. 

“Oh my god, David–” 

“Don’t say you’re sorry,” David sighs. 

Patrick’s mouth snaps shut. “Right,” he says. 

“That was–,” David shakes his head. He’s still a little out of breath.

“Yeah,” Patrick agrees. 

“Is it just me or was that, like, _more_ than usual?”

“No, it was.”

“What happened?” David asks, voice soft. Patrick has this look on his face like he wants to melt into the floor, and David doesn’t want to spook him. 

“I don’t – I felt, frantic,” Patrick says, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’ve been trying to fight it all day, the – the thoughts. But it just got harder and harder, until…I – I _needed_ you, David.” He sounds broken, and he looks lost. It breaks David’s heart. 

“Hey, I’m right here.” David reaches a hand toward him, but Patrick takes a step back. 

“Don’t. I’m not in control, here; I don’t want to hurt you.” 

“Well, that’s not going to happen,” David assures him, and at Patrick’s doubtful look he adds, “What? You don’t think I could win in a fight? I’ll have you know I was once involved in a bar fight with three Real Housewives, and I was the undisputed champion of that fight. Mostly because I’m not above scratching, biting, and hair pulling.” 

“Okay, that’s not” – Patrick looks really uncomfortable now – “that’s not helpful, David.” 

“Why, I’m just saying – oh. _Oh._ Sorry. I didn’t mean it, like, in a sexy way.” 

Patrick huffs a frustrated laugh. “Maybe I should just go home and, like, lock myself in a closet until this thing wears off,” he says. 

“No, look, hey,” David reaches a hand out again, telegraphing his movement. Patrick lets him lay a hand on his shoulder, and he rubs small circles into the muscle there. “I’m okay. You didn’t hurt me. It was very, um” – David doesn’t want to say something that’s going to get Patrick worked up, but he also needs Patrick to know that there was nothing wrong with anything he just did. “It was nice.” 

Patrick laughs again, rueful. He still looks like he could bolt at any second. 

“I’m serious,” David goes on. “It felt good. I just, I feel bad because none of this would be happening if I hadn’t drugged you with a literal witch’s potion. So, that’s why I had to stop you. Because there are consent issues at play, here. Not because I didn’t, um, like it.” 

Finally, a bit of relief seems to crack through the fear etched into Patrick’s face. 

“Really?” he says.

“Promise,” David says. “And, anyway, that’s not going to happen again because we’re not going to let you get to that point again, where you feel frantic.” He leans in, slow, and presses the softest of kisses to the corner of Patrick’s mouth. When he pulls back, the relief has bloomed across Patrick’s face, and David feels a little victorious. “I don’t want you to fight it like that again, okay? When you want to kiss me, just kiss me.” 

Patrick wraps his hands around David’s wrists, his grip loose, just barely holding David in place. “What if there’s a customer?”

“Mmm, depends on what kind of store we want to be running, here.” 

“I’m serious, David. I still have to look these people in the eye when this thing wears off. I don’t want them to see me, like, throwing myself at you.” 

“Oh, but I would like it very much if people thought I had that kind of effect on you.” 

Patrick leans in and kisses him, short and sweet. “You do have that kind of effect on me, though,” he says when he pulls away. “And I mean it. We can’t do this in front of the customers.”

“What if we had a code word,” David suggests. He’s always secretly wanted to be a spy, the remnant of his childhood crush on James Bond. “Like, you could say, ‘David, I need your help with something in the stockroom, please.’ And I would know, like, that means kissing.” 

“Mhm,” Patrick nods, considering, “and what if I actually need your help with something in the stockroom? What do I say then?” 

“Well, we would need a separate code word for that,” David says like it’s obvious. 

“And did you have any suggestions?” 

“Um…avocado?” 

“So, to clarify,” Patrick wraps an arm around David’s waist, pulling him in again. This time it’s slow, though, playful, no sign of the desperation from before. “If I want to kiss you, I say ‘David, I need your help with something in the stockroom, please.’”

“That’s right.”

“And if I need your help with something in the stockroom, I say… ‘avocado.’”

“Avocado, yes, that’s correct.”

“I think I have it. Hey, David?”

“Yes, Patrick?”

“I need your help with something in the stockroom, please.” 

++++

The rest of the day goes pretty smoothly. Or, as smoothly as possible given the circumstances. Patrick only needs David’s help with something in the stockroom a few times, and he keeps his kisses brief and mostly PG-rated. Maybe PG-13. 

David gets a text from Twyla an hour before close, and he practically crows with excitement. 

“Yes! Oh, thank god.” 

“What?” Patrick comes from the back room, where he’d been running the numbers on some new potential vendors, to stand beside him. 

“Twyla finally heard from her aunt. She said she’ll have a counterspell ready for you in the morning.” David rubs Patrick’s shoulder absently with one hand. 

“Oh, thank god,” Patrick breathes, slumping onto the counter. 

“Mmhmm,” David agrees, before a thought occurs to him. “Not that, um, this hasn’t been – I mean, I don’t want to imply that you’re a bad kisser, or, um – “ 

“No, David, this is very good news. I’m not in any way insulted that you want me to go back to the way I was before.” Patrick’s smile is slanted, like the two of them are sharing a joke, and David’s stomach twists. 

Go back to the way it was before. Obviously, that was what he wanted for Patrick, right? 

“Although,” Patrick continues, sounding slightly more hesitant. “There is something I’ve been meaning to bring up with you all day, and I actually feel a little bit better about asking, now that I know this is all going to be over tomorrow.” 

“Oh, okay,” David says, his eyebrows furrowing. 

“So, um, last night. When I couldn’t. See you, for a while, or – or be with you…” Patrick’s words are coming so haltingly that David briefly wonders if talking might be causing him physical pain. Hadn’t he just said he felt better about asking for whatever it was? 

“Yes,” David encourages him to go on. 

“Well, I was wondering if you might consider – I mean, if you might be willing to, um, not that you would have to – or we would have to–“

“Oh my god, Patrick. What? Say it! What?”

“Would you spend the night?” Patrick blurts out. 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah, would you, um, would you stay over with me? At my place?”

“Oh,” David says again. “I thought that, um, you said that it wasn’t that bad last night?”

“Well, I did drive to your motel at 2 a.m.”

“Yeah, but after that– “

“It was still pretty bad, David,” Patrick confesses. 

“Oh,” David says yet again. It’s like his brain is short-circuiting.

“I just thought that,” Patrick brackets his head in his hands where he’s still slumped over the counter. “Look, I haven’t slept in, like, two nights? I just thought maybe I could finally get some sleep if I knew you were next to me.”

“So you want me _in_ the bed with you.” 

“Oh, well, no, that’s – You wouldn’t have to do that. I mean, yes, that’s how I pictured it, but – no, that’s probably not appropriate.” 

“What about any of this is appropriate, though?” 

Patrick laughs, a sharp sound cutting through the silence of the store. “Good point.” 

“No, okay, yes,” David says after a moment of consideration. He knows that spending the night with Patrick is probably the dumbest – nope, second dumbest – thing he’ll do this week, but it’s also _Patrick_ asking for his help, which means he doesn’t have much choice, really. “Yes, I’ll, um, spend the night.” 

Patrick stops slouching over the counter, standing to his full height to look David in the eye. “Really? You don’t have to.” 

“No, I know. It’s fine. I’m happy to help.”

“Thank you, David.” 

“Especially since this whole thing is partially my fault.” 

“Entirely.” 

“Entirely my fault, yep.” 

Patrick’s grinning at him now, looking relieved, and David can’t help but grin back.

A little while later, they’re working through their closing procedure for the second time, when something occurs to David. He pauses mid-sweep of the sales floor and glances over to where Patrick is counting out the till, unsure if he should even ask. He doesn’t want to be unprepared, though. He figures an awkward conversation now is better than a misunderstanding later, so he squares his shoulders and calls Patrick’s name across the small space. 

“Um, so, just so we’re clear on the…parameters for tonight. You still just need to, like, kiss me sometimes, right? You don’t feel like you need to do… other things?”

Patrick reddens so fast David’s surprised he doesn’t pass out from the sudden rush of blood from his brain to his skin. “No, David! Just – just kissing,” he sputters. “I wouldn’t ask you to–”

“Okay, I was just checking! I just wanted to be prepared.”

“Are you saying that you would have–”

“No! That’s not what I was implying. I just – you said you wanted me _in bed_ with you.” 

“Like, for comfort! For proximity.”

“Well, I didn’t know!” 

Patrick looks at him, shaking his head slightly, like he can’t quite believe David exists. David goes back to sweeping the floor, two-thirds relieved, one-third disappointed that Patrick won’t be looking for any _additional_ services tonight. They finish closing up the store in relative silence, though it doesn’t escape David’s attention that Patrick’s blush takes a very, very long time to recede. 

Patrick drives him to the motel to pick up a few things and David manages to not physically assault Alexis when she teases him about where he’s going, though it’s by a narrow margin. 

Before David knows it, he’s following Patrick up the stairs and into his bedroom at Ray’s. It’s barely even 6 o’clock – it’s still light outside – but David and Patrick had already decided that neither one of them were in the mood to do much of anything that evening, especially chat with Ray. They were both so exhausted, so physically and emotionally spent, and all David wanted to do was put on some comfy clothes and lie completely still until all his problems went away. 

“So, this is it,” Patrick says, stepping aside to let David into the room. He closes the door behind them while David takes in the rosy wallpaper and brass bed and random tchotchkes. The overall aesthetic of the room is such a departure from who Patrick is as a person that David feels disoriented, like when you first step off the moving walkway at an airport.

There are a few glimpses of Patrick scattered around the room, though: a legal pad and pen on the nightstand, a pair of Levi’s draped over the bedframe, a picture of his parents tucked into the mirror over the dresser, and David is comforted. 

“It’s nice,” he says politely, and Patrick huffs a laugh. 

“It gets the job done,” he says. He hovers near the door, looking unsettled, so David takes a few steps further into the room, drops his overnight bag next to the bed, and spins to face Patrick with what he hopes is a confident expression on his face. 

“Look, David, I feel like I need to tell you something,” Patrick says in a rush, shoving his fists into his pockets. 

“Okay,” David says. 

“I, um, I’m starting to feel a little…frantic,” Patrick says pointedly. It takes David a moment to catch on. 

“Oh? _Oh_ …okay, well, it has been a few hours since we last, um.” 

“I’m well aware.”

David crosses the room to stand in front of Patrick. 

“Did you want to, um…” he doesn’t know why he’s still so shy to talk about it. This thing with Patrick has been going on for over a day. He should be over the initial weirdness of it by now. He sighs in frustration. “Do you want to kiss me, then?”

“I mean, obviously,” Patrick says. He doesn’t make a move though. 

“Okay, well, you have my permission.” 

“I don’t know, David. Last time was… pretty intense.” 

“I remember. Vividly.” 

“I don’t want to hurt you if I get carried away like that, again.”

“You’re not going to hurt me, Patrick,” David says, and he’s sure of it. Patrick could never hurt him.

“Well, I don’t want to push you further into something than you’re willing to go–”

“I trust you,” David says simply. 

Patrick yanks his fists out of his pockets and makes a move toward David, but stops himself at the last moment. He takes a few breaths, finally looking up to meet David’s eyes. “Could you… could you do it?” he asks, sounding embarrassed. 

“Do what?” David says. 

“Could you…” Patrick waves a hand between them. “Could you kiss me?”

“Oh…”

“It’s just, I think it would be better, if you initiated it, and then I could just, focus on staying still. That way I know I’m not, like, taking too much.” 

It’s a little adorable, David thinks. How concerned Patrick is with not hurting him, with not asking too much of him. Patrick could ask him for anything, for everything, David thinks, and he’d say yes. He’d be happy to say yes. 

But of course, now’s not the time to admit all that to his poor bespelled business partner. So, David nods. 

“Okay, yes, I can do that.” 

Patrick’s entire body ripples with relief. He runs his palms over his thighs and squares his shoulders. “Okay,” he breathes. 

David steps in, keeping his movements slow, and crowds Patrick against the door. He runs his hands up Patrick’s arms, settling him, and leans in to press a soft kiss against his lips. Patrick sighs again at the contact and David forces himself, with considerable effort, not to lose his composure. He’s just here to help Patrick through this, that’s all. He’s just here to give him enough so that he doesn’t lose it again. 

He presses his tongue to the seam of Patrick’s mouth and it opens for him. He licks into Patrick’s mouth for several long moments, curling his tongue, kissing him deeply, trying to give Patrick everything he needs without it being too much.

David is pretty sure it passed the point of no return on too much for himself the moment Patrick pressed a kiss to his cheek, but maybe Patrick can still come back from this if he wanted to. As long as David doesn’t do anything to screw it up. 

He pulls back after a while, hoping he’s done enough to take Patrick’s edge off, but Patrick whines. 

“David,” he says, and it sound like a warning, a plea, a fucking incantation. 

David presses his forehead to Patrick’s and shushes him, says “I’ve got you.” He looks down and sees that Patrick’s fists are clenched firmly at his sides, the knuckles white. He runs his hands down Patrick’s arms and opens them, gently, winding his fingers into Patrick’s. Patrick’s hands are shaking. 

“Okay, okay,” David says. It’s not enough; he knows Patrick needs more. He drops Patrick’s hands to wrap his own around Patrick’s waist, pressing him against the door and pinning him there, chest to chest. 

He licks one long stripe up Patrick’s neck and feels him shiver, hears the dull thump of Patrick’s head dropping back against the door. 

“David, _god_ , fuck.” 

David uses the encouragement to carry himself forward, licking and nipping along Patrick’s neck, his jaw. He doesn’t know how long the two of them stand there, David giving Patrick everything he can without taking it too far, Patrick seeming to fight with everything he has to just stay still.

He makes the most wonderful needy, pleased, encouraging sounds and David snatches up each one to keep for always in the back of his mind. Finally, after a century or more of maddeningly slow kisses and licks and bites, David drops to Patrick’s collar bone, bites the skin there and presses one last kiss to it before pressing his face into the warm space where Patrick’s neck meets his shoulder. He’s breathing hard, can feel Patrick gasping for air beneath him.

Patrick wraps an arm around his back, snakes another around the back of his head to bury his fingers in David’s air. Tears threaten at the corners of David’s eyes but he wills them away. 

“Thank you, David,” Patrick whispers. 

“Was that – was it enough?” David asks, his voice sounding small to his own ears. He’s not sure he can go further without sacrificing something of himself at this point. 

“It was perfect,” Patrick breathes, sounding so content that David suddenly feels it was all worth it. 

David extracts himself awkwardly from Patrick’s arms and turns away. He feels raw, flayed open, and he’s afraid if Patrick takes one look at him, he’ll know exactly how much David wants this, how much he enjoys it. 

He scoops up his bag and deposits it onto Patrick’s bed, rifling through it as though he’s looking for something. Behind him, Patrick clears his throat. 

“I’m, um, I’m going to hop in the shower,” he hears Patrick say. “Unless you want to?”

“No, you go,” David nods without looking up. 

“Okay,” Patrick says. His voice sounds shaky. “Then maybe we can order a pizza or something?”

“Oh, god, yes,” David says, and he doesn’t have to work that hard to be as over the top about it as possible. He’s barely eaten all day, and he is fully starving. 

“Okay,” Patrick says again, sounding relieved. David hears the door open and close again a moment later, and then he’s alone. 

+++++

David is perched on the end of Patrick’s bed, legs crossed primly, scrolling on his phone. He feels claustrophobic with the reality of their present situation, and he wishes he could escape. He’d briefly considered going downstairs before he remembered Ray was down there and would probably have a lot of things to say and a lot of questions to ask, and that was decidedly not something David wanted any part of at this time, so. 

Patrick has only been gone fifteen minutes or so before there’s a soft knock on the door and his muffled voice is filtering through. 

“David? Are you – can I come in?”

“Of course, come in,” David answers. Patrick only opens the door enough to poke his head through. His hair is wet, his skin slightly pink and still damp, and he looks embarrassed. David should be used to the expression on his face by now. “It’s your room,” David goes on, not sure why Patrick’s hesitant to come in. 

“I forgot to bring…I don’t have any clothes,” Patrick tells him. 

“Oh, um, here,” David stands up so he can turn around. “I won’t look.” 

“No, that’s not–” He hears the door open fully and senses more than hears Patrick step inside. “You can look; I have a towel,” Patrick says. “I just, didn’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

David turns around because he doesn’t want it to be weird. But then Patrick’s standing there in a freaking towel, gripping it at his hip where it’s twisted together. He’s pink and damp and wearing a towel, and David is definitely uncomfortable. 

“Why,” he clears his throat. “Why would I be uncomfortable?” 

Patrick smirks at him, but his amusement doesn’t quite reach his eyes. David thinks, if it weren’t for the awkwardness of the situation they’re in, Patrick would be teasing him right now. He wishes he would. 

Of course, if it weren’t for the awkwardness of the situation they’re in, David wouldn’t be (decidedly not) staring at Patrick in nothing but a towel right now. 

“I left you plenty of hot water,” Patrick says, instead of whatever he’d been thinking. “If you want next shower.” 

It’s an odd way to phrase it, David thinks. ‘Next shower.’ Like they’re at summer camp or something, and there’s a line of other people outside waiting to bathe themselves, rather than just the two of them at the strangest sleepover David has ever attended. Which is fucking saying something. 

“Mhm, yep,” David says, grabbing his overnight bag and striding past Patrick with much more confidence than he actually possesses. 

By the time David has showered, more or less restyled his hair, dressed himself in his sleeping clothes, and performed his abbreviated nighttime skincare routine, the pizza has already been delivered. Patrick has everything spread out, picnic style, on the bed: the pizza, cheesy bread, paper towels, and two cans of soda. David had hoped for something a little stronger to wash it all down, but beggars can’t be choosers.

David settles onto the bed opposite Patrick, who folds up a wad of paper towel and arranges it in front of David like a place setting. The act is so domestic and intimate and charming that David isn’t even that alarmed at the incorrectness of eating greasy pizza on a bed without a plate.

He digs into the pizza with wanton enthusiasm, moaning unabashedly around his first bite, and isn’t surprised when he spots Patrick staring openly at him, his expression an equal mix of fondness and disgust. It’s Patrick’s usual expression whenever David’s eating, and he finds it comforting that at least that part of their relationship hasn’t changed. 

Then, Patrick closes the space between them and presses a kiss against David’s closed mouth. David goes still, but Patrick just leans back and picks up a slice for himself, taking a bite like nothing had happened. 

Wait, David thinks. Did Patrick always think about kissing David when he was making that face? Is that what making that face _meant_ on Patrick? That he was thinking about kissing him? If so, that was… something he’d thought about a lot, and for a long time. 

“Can I ask you something?” David says before he can overthink it. 

“Mm?” Patrick says, his mouth full of pizza. 

“So, before, when you said that you thought about kissing me ‘semi-regularly,’ what you actually meant was that you thought about it, like, twenty times a day,” David says. He tries to keep his voice light. He doesn’t want Patrick to think that he’s accusing him of anything, but he really wants to know. 

“Is that a question?” Patrick asks, and David’s grateful for the teasing smirk on his face. Okay, yes, they can play it this way. 

“No, I’m just curious. I mean, I’m just trying to figure it out, because there doesn’t seem to be a system?” David rambles. “Sometimes you kiss me like every five minutes and sometimes you wait for hours, and sometimes the kisses are just little pecks and sometimes they’re…not.” David feels his cheeks starting to warm. “So I’m just wondering, um, how often these thoughts are occurring to you?” 

Patrick grimaces, like he knew they’d have to broach this subject but he really, really doesn’t want to. 

“Like what is your level of obsession with me, I guess, is what I’m asking,” David says, his smirk threatening to overtake his whole face.

“Okay,” Patrick rolls his eyes. “’Obsession’ is a bit much. It wasn’t like I thought about it all the time,” he starts, and at David’s arched eyebrow, his voice goes up defensively. “It wasn’t.” 

“It’s okay if it was,” David says softly, and marvels at Patrick’s sharp intake of breath. 

“It was just something that popped into my head sometimes. But I think, I think about it more, now,” Patrick tells him honestly. “Now that I know that I can do it.” 

David nods, because yeah, that makes sense. It’s easier for him, too, leaning into the kisses, leaning in to Patrick, now that he knows that he can, that he’s allowed. But Patrick’s already steamrolling to explain himself. 

“Not that I – you know, I know that I can’t just _do_ it. Like, I know that it’s not right, making you go along–”

David lays a hand on top of Patrick’s, stopping him. “Nope, we’re not doing that,” he says. “You’re not _making me_ go along with anything. It’s mostly my fault this happened to you, and I just want you to be okay, so. We’re both just… figuring this out.” At Patrick’s grateful little smile, he goes on. “And it’s not like it’s not _nice_ , kissing you. Or – being kissed by you. Because it is. It’s very nice.”

Patrick gives him another long, unreadable look, and the back of David’s neck itches with the weight of it. 

“I just want you to be okay,” he says again, and takes a bite of his pizza. 

Patrick leans in again, but to David’s surprise, he presses a wet kiss to David’s cheek.

“I’m okay, David,” he says, looking pleased. 

By the time they’ve demolished most of the pizza, it’s after 8 o’clock, and David’s stifling multiple yawns with his fist. Patrick clears up their dinner mess and grabs his laptop. He puts some old sitcom on, pitching the volume low, and sets it on the bed next to David’s legs. They both slip under the covers, a respectable amount of space between them. 

“This is okay, right?” Patrick says, gesturing between them. “I can sleep downstairs–”

“No, this is okay,” David tells him. “I’m going to pass out in like, hm, twenty-seven seconds anyway, so.” 

“That’s a very specific timeframe,” Patrick’s teasing is belied by his own stifled yawn. 

“I’m at a very specific point of exhaustion,” David says. 

“Hmm, same.” 

“You can, um, wake me up, or whatever, if you need to…? Or, you don’t have to wake me up, you can just–” David runs out of steam midway through his sentence. He trusts Patrick has caught the gist of what he’s saying. 

“Maybe I won’t even need to,” Patrick murmurs.

“Maybe.” 

“…hands?” Patrick says, and it takes a moment for it to register. David flails his hand around in the bed until it collides with Patrick’s chest and Patrick wraps it in his own. He can hear Patrick sigh beside him but it sounds far away.

“G’night, David,” Patrick says. 

++++ 

David wakes up to Patrick peppering feather light kisses all over his face: his brows, his cheek, his jawline, his mouth. For a moment, David tries not to move, but his breathing must give him away, because Patrick pulls back, slightly. 

“Oh,” he says. “Good morning, sunshine.” 

David dares to crack an eye open. Patrick’s hair is mussed, lines from the pillowcase still etched into his cheek, and David aches with the intimacy of seeing him like this. 

“Hi,” he breathes. 

“Sorry, to, uh…” Patrick raises an eyebrow. “You said I didn’t need to wake you up if–”

“No, it’s okay,” David says. “It was a nice way to wake up,” he adds, rubbing a fist into one eye while he watches Patrick’s face light up with the other. 

“Oh, good.” 

“I didn’t hear you wake up in the night, did you not need to?”

“No,” Patrick says, sounding surprised. “I mean, I woke up at one point. It felt like one of those ‘oh no, I left the stove on’ things, or whatever, like I forgot to do something. But then, when I looked over and saw you there, I didn’t feel anything… pressing. I was fine; so I just went back to sleep.”

“Good thing I slept over then, huh?”

“I guess, yeah.” 

“So, then, but this morning it felt pressing, though?” David doesn’t know why he’s still trying so hard to understand the pattern behind all this, because there doesn’t seem to be one, but he can’t help himself. 

Patrick looks sheepish. “Oh, I don’t know. Not really, I just–” He drops his head to the pillow, burying his face. It makes him look like a little kid, David thinks, and even though he himself isn’t a fan of children, on Patrick, it’s very cute. Patrick raises his head again, one eye squinched up in an embarrassed sort of grimace. “Is it bad if I say I was just trying to make the most of it, before we go see Twyla’s aunt?”

“…Make the most of it?” David echoes.

“Yeah, you know, after this morning, I won’t get to do this, so I just thought… God, it sounds really creepy when I hear myself say it out loud.”

David’s face feels warm. Patrick wasn’t kissing him because he felt compelled to; he was doing it because he wanted to. Because he wanted to make the most of it before he had to stop. 

“That’s not,” David chokes a little, clears his throat, tries again. “That’s not creepy.”

“Uhh, I was kissing you while you were asleep, David. It’s pretty creepy,” Patrick says, a self-deprecating smirk on his face. He rolls away from David and stands abruptly, scrubbing a hand over his face. “But hey, we’ll have the counterspell soon, and then you won’t have to deal with me creeping on you anymore.”

David frowns as Patrick grabs a clean change of clothes and heads to the bathroom. He stares up at the ceiling, wondering what would happen after they got the counterspell and everything went back to how it was before.

Obviously, they were going to have to have a long conversation about everything. Because Patrick had been thinking about kissing him, maybe for months, and now that he knew that, now that he knew that that was an _option_ , David couldn’t just let it go. 

But was it really an option, though? That was the question. Because thinking about kissing someone didn’t mean you actually wanted to kiss them. And even if you did, that didn’t mean you wanted to do anything more than kissing, like dating. It didn’t mean you wanted to date them. And even if you did want to date them, that didn’t mean it was a good idea if they were also your business partner. And even if it was a good idea, that didn’t mean that… 

Okay, he needed to stop. There was no point in worrying about any of this until they got the counterspell and Patrick was himself again. What David wanted didn’t matter, not until Patrick was okay. 

After a lengthy pep talk in Ray’s bathroom mirror, a quick costume change, and an equally quick breakfast of coffee and toast, David is following Patrick to his car. He punches the address Twyla gave him into his phone’s GPS and informs Patrick that it should take twenty minutes to get there. 

Patrick reaches for his hand on the drive, but they don’t say much. What is there to say, at this point? 

He’s picking up on a strange sort of forceful energy coming off of Patrick, but he doesn’t want to ask him if something’s wrong, like an idiot. Of course something’s wrong. Literally everything about this whole situation is wrong ( _except the parts that feel really, really right_ , his brain suggests, which, okay, yes, except those parts). 

When they finally reach Twyla’s aunt’s house, it doesn’t look at all how David pictured. Without realizing it, he’d sort of expected her to live in a chicken footed house in the middle of the woods. Or maybe a house made of candy to entice young children to her door. It’s actually a split-level ranch situated in the middle of a farm with a rambling garden along one side and a field of lavender on the other. It’s almost picturesque, really. 

“You can stay here, I’ll go in,” David offers, but Patrick cuts him a look that brooks no argument. 

“No way, David, I’m going in,” he says decisively. 

“Oh, okay.”

They step onto the front porch together and David knocks on the door. The woman who answers looks to be in her late 50s and has Twyla’s freckles and the same kind sparkle in her eyes. Again, not the old, pointy-hatted crone David was picturing. 

“Can I help you boys?” she asks. 

“Hi, Helga? I’m David Rose,” David extends a hand, but Patrick reaches across him, knocking it away. 

“You gave us a bad spell, lady,” he accuses, pointing his finger at her like some sort of indignant cartoon character. 

Aunt Helga holds them both in a long, appraising stare, and David clears his throat awkwardly. 

“Did I? How rude of me,” she says finally. “Won’t you two come in?”

Patrick rocks back on his feet like he’s been struck. David guesses he wasn’t expecting her to just agree with him like that. 

“Alright,” he says, his tone still hostile. 

“Should we go into a witch’s house?” David hisses at him after Helga turns away, but Patrick is already following behind her and, well, if she is planning to hex them, David can’t exactly let Patrick get hexed alone. He follows them inside and closes the door behind him. 

Having now met her, David’s expecting peak cottagecore aesthetic from Helga, but instead the interior décor of the home is more Brady Bunch? Everything is that unapologetically hideous green, orange, and brown color scheme that was popular during a very specific time in the 70s, there’s shag carpeting everywhere, and one full wall of the sunken living room is just a huge, mottled mirror. He shakes it off and settles beside Patrick on the couch. 

“So, you boys are Twyla’s friends.”

“Yes, ma’am,” David says, channeling every ounce of charm he can muster to avoid getting turned into a mouse. “We just love Twyla, what a great girl.” 

“My partner asked Twyla to get us confidence spells,” Patrick starts in, in that same ‘I want to talk to a manager’ tone he had on the porch. “And instead you gave us some sort of, of…” he flails his hands in frustration, and David lays a comforting hand over them. 

“You gave us a, um, kissing charm? Or something,” David says kindly, schooling his expression into a sort of ‘oops, could’ve happened to anyone!’ look. 

“I don’t do kissing charms,” Helga says, matter-of-fact. “Too messy.” 

David snorts. “Mm, yeah, I could definitely see where that would be the case. Um, it’s just, in this instance, a kissing charm is, um, what we got.” 

“I didn’t give you a kissing charm,” she says again, and David would go off on this woman if he wasn’t afraid she’d curse him to have the face of a pig. 

“I can’t stop kissing him!” Patrick practically shouts, his hands flailing to indicate David. “Ever since I drank that tea that you made, I’m all over him!”

David bites his cheek. He won’t laugh. Now is not the time.

“Did you want to kiss him?” Helga asks steadily. 

“That’s not – I mean – hey, I don’t–” Patrick blusters.

“He did,” David says, nodding. “A little bit, yeah.” 

Patrick shoots him a betrayed look. “You did,” David says gently. 

“Okay, so it worked then.”

Patrick and David both turn to look at Helga. 

“What do you mean, it worked?” Patrick asks. 

“The spell I gave you. For courage.”

“Okay, but we didn’t ask for courage. We asked for confidence,” David points out. 

“Potato, potah-to,” Helga says. “There was something you wanted, right? More than anything. Something you wanted to do, to have. But you were scared.” 

“Yeah, our store,” David says adamantly, “we wanted the opening of our store to go well.” David’s trying to keep his voice even, so Helga doesn’t curse him to be a wolf at night and Patrick to be a hawk during the day so they can never see each other again. Or something. 

“Maybe that’s what _you_ wanted,” Helga says simply. 

Patrick has gone strangely still and quiet beside him. 

“I’m guessing your argumentative friend here wanted something else a little bit more.” 

David looks at him questioningly. Oh. _Oh._

“Patrick?” he asks. 

“I have to go,” Patrick says, standing abruptly, his face somehow turning pink and ashen at the same time. “I’ll meet you outside, David.” 

David watches him go. 

“The courage spell makes it so you do the thing you want most to do,” Helga explains, watching the screen door slam violently behind Patrick’s retreating frame. “You’re compelled to do it. All the excuses, the fears, the reasons we tell ourselves ‘I can’t have this, I shouldn’t want that,’ they all just,” she waves her fingers, “vanish.”

“I didn’t feel compelled, though,” David says, his voice almost a whisper in the suddenly still room. 

“You didn’t?”

“No,” David clears his throat. When he speaks again, his voice sounds a little steadier. “I drank the tea, and I didn’t feel any different.”

“Twyla told me about your store,” Helga leans back in her chair, smoothing her hands over her lap. “It sounds like you put a lot of hard work into it.”

“I did. It’s very important to me,” David says. 

“So you already had the thing you wanted most.”

“Oh,” David looks down at his hands. “Yes, yes I did.”

“Well, then.”

“So will you, um, can you fix Patrick? My – my partner,” David waves a hand toward the door. “The uh, the angry guy?”

“I can and I will,” Helga says, her eyes sparkling with amusement. “Although, are you sure you want me to?”

“Hah, pretty sure he’d kill me if I didn’t bring him the counterspell at this point,” David says lightly, though there’s some truth to it. 

“Somehow I doubt that,” Helga says, and she actually winks at him, the little minx. David follows her into the kitchen and watches her fill a battered steel kettle with water and place it on the stovetop. 

“Can I ask you something?” David says while Helga fills a tea ball with a strange-smelling plant material. 

“Shoot,” she says.

“How come it, like, kept happening?”

“What?”

“The kissing,” David clarifies. “If Patrick wanted to kiss me, then shouldn’t the compulsion have stopped after he did it the first time? Like, he got what he wanted.” 

“It does seem like your friend was more affected than most by this spell. He must have wanted you very badly, and he must have repressed that desire very deeply to have been so affected.” 

“Oh, okay, um, wow.” 

“Think of it like a dam breaking,” she tells him. “The water doesn’t stop coming just because the pressure has finally started to ebb.”

“Huh. Okay, that makes sense.” 

Helga pulls a travel mug from one of her cabinets and drops the tea ball inside. Just as the kettle starts to whistle, she whips it from the heat and fills the mug with water. She fixes the lid on and presents it to David with a flourish.

“I wish you luck, David Rose,” she tells him. “You and your grumpy friend.” 

“Thank you, and my grumpy friend thanks you,” David says, chuckling. “Um, how long before he, you know?” David gestures to the mug, his eyebrows raised.

“If he drinks this before you leave here, then the effects should be gone by the time you make it back into town.”

David bites his lip, nodding. To his own surprise, he wraps Helga in a hug. Leave it to him to make friends with a literal witch. 

“Thank you,” he says again. He leaves her to infer what he’s actually thanking her for: undoing the spell, or casting it in the first place. 

Patrick is leaning against the driver’s side door of his car, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. He watches David’s approach, his expression unreadable. 

“Here,” David says, handing him the tea. “She said if you drink it now, you’ll be back to normal by the time we get back.” 

He wants to say a hundred different things to Patrick, things that start with ‘I had no idea-’ and ‘Why didn’t you tell me-’ and ‘It’s okay-’ and ‘Me too-,’ but he’s pretty sure Patrick isn’t in the mood to hear anything right now. He looks pissed, and embarrassed, and David knows him well enough by now to know that this is one of those times when Patrick’s going to need to process things on his own first.

Patrick takes a tentative sip from the mug. “It’s really hot,” he tells David, then leans in for another sip. 

“Okay, it’s not a race,” David lays a hand on Patrick’s wrist. “You can wait until it cools down.” 

“No, I can’t, David,” Patrick tells him tightly. 

“Patrick, it’s fine, we have the counterspell. It doesn’t matter if you drink it now or ten minutes from now-” Patrick wraps a hand around the back of his neck and pulls him in for a searing kiss. David stumbles a little from the force of it, then he’s fisting his hands in Patrick’s shirt and pulling him in closer, because if this is going to be the last time they do this then he’s going to make it one to remember. 

Eventually, Patrick pulls away, panting into David’s mouth. 

“Dammit,” he says, taking a step back. “I thought I’d be able to resist until the counterspell kicked in.”

“I have been told I’m very hard to resist, so,” David tells him, smoothing out the front of his shirt where he’s bunched it up. 

“That must be it,” Patrick says flatly. David keeps smoothing his hands over Patrick’s shirt, his own little compulsion, and after a while he realizes Patrick is watching him. David pulls his hands away and folds his arms over his chest. 

“I’m going to miss you,” David tells him, surprised by the raw honesty in his own voice. 

“I’m not going anywhere, David,” Patrick says. 

David nods and looks away, letting the silence stretch between them like a wall going up. 

“I mean, except for right now,” Patrick says after a moment, his voice teasing as he opens the driver’s side door. “I’m getting in the car now, and I’m driving home.”

“Yeah, okay,” David says, beleaguered, as he makes his way around to the other side of the car. 

“But you can come with me,” Patrick tells him generously. 

“Thanks so much,” David says. 

+++++

It’s Sunday, which means they don’t have to open the store, but there’s still a lot to do there. As much as spending the next several hours with a likely pissed off Patrick Brewer who no longer wants to kiss him doesn’t appeal to David, he can’t think of a good reason to get out of it, either. And he really, really tries.

Patrick does allow him to go to the café to get them a real breakfast, a small reprieve. When Twyla grills him about the counterspell and how everything is going, though, David wishes he’d never offered to pick up their food in the first place. 

But after spending an hour at the store with a tight-lipped (in every meaning of the term) Patrick, David is back at the café for more coffee, and two hours after that, he’s there for their lunch. He stretches each trip out as long as possible and is thrilled when he runs into his mom and Jocelyn “lunching” together because he has the excuse to waste an extra ten minutes getting caught up on all the town hot goss, and, God, that’s what his life has come to: actively seeking out minutiae about the citizens of Schitt’s Creek in the interest of avoiding his business partner at all costs.

David had been so confident, while Patrick was under the influence of the spell, that they’d be able to figure everything out once it was over. He’d figured it would be rough, but they would be able to salvage their friendship, at least. Maybe even talk through their mutual attraction, see if there was anything there to pursue. 

Now, though, having seen how tense Patrick is around him, how he’d stormed out of Helga’s house at even the mention of his having feelings for David, David’s not so sure. What if Patrick wants space? David wouldn’t blame him if he has trust issues now. What if he wants to sever their partnership? Their friendship?

When he finally meanders back to the Apothecary sometime later, he can tell from a glance at the set of Patrick’s shoulders that he’s irritated.

“Got your turkey club,” David tells him. “I’ll set it in the back room.”

“Fine. Thanks,” Patrick says, not turning around.

“Um, sorry I was gone so long,” David offers. “I ran into my mom and–”

“It’s fine, David,” Patrick finally turns to face him. “Why don’t you just head home for the day?”

“What? But we still have to go over–”

“I can handle it. You should go,” Patrick says, too casually.

“Do you – do you want me to go?” David asks him. He fidgets the rings on his right hand.

“It’s not about what I want, David,” Patrick says, shrugging. “You obviously don’t want to be here.”

“No, that’s–”

“You’ve taken every possible excuse to get away from me today,” Patrick says.

“That’s – I’m trying to give you space,” David says defensively. 

“You’re avoiding me.”

“Of course I’m avoiding you,” David blurts out. At Patrick’s hurt look, he rushes on, flailing his hands. “No, that’s not… I’m avoiding you because I’m afraid of what you might say, if I, if I give you the chance.”

Patrick’s face shuts down, that light switch going off again.

“Oh,” he says.

“Yeah, I just – I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to handle that,” David tells him honestly.

“I don’t have to say it,” Patrick says, his voice quiet. “I don’t have to say anything. We could just… let’s just go back, to how it was before. Like nothing ever happened.”

“Not sure I can do that,” David admits, staring at his shoes.

“Then what do you want, David?” Patrick asks him, sounding resigned.

“What do I want?”

“Yeah, you don’t want me to tell you I have feelings for you. You don’t want to pretend it never–”

“Wait, wait,” David puts out a hand. “Um, rewind that, please.”

“You just said you can’t pretend it didn’t happen,” Patrick says, eyebrows up like he’s daring David to contradict him.

“Nope, before that.”

Patrick pauses, thinking. “You don’t want me to tell you I have feelings for you.”

“Don’t remember saying that.”

“You said you were afraid of what I’d say if I had the chance,” Patrick says, slowly, like David’s dumb, which, okay. That’s fair.

“Well, I certainly didn’t think _that’s_ what you would say, if you had the chance.”

“What did you think I’d say?”

“I don’t know – that you want out of the business? That you hate me for – for casting a spell on you, and making you kiss me, and liking it too much when you did, and… I don’t know, probably other things.”

“David, I don’t hate you,” Patrick takes a step toward him. All of his irritation from earlier is gone, something like amusement in its place. 

“Oh, well that’s–”

“You liked it too much?” Patrick says, his mouth fully tilting in that teasing way it does as he takes another step toward David. “Like, how much are we talking?”

David blows out a relieved breath.

“A semi-moderate amount,” he says, rolling his eyes.

“Mhmm.”

“Okay, no,” David says, holding up a hand again to stop Patrick's advance, because he still isn’t sure what’s happening here. “I was at Helga’s, and – and before that. You were very eager to not be in the position of having to kiss me anymore.”

“David, I had no control of if or when or how I kissed you. I didn’t like not being in control of my own body,” Patrick says seriously. “I don’t like losing control.”

“Oh. Yeah, no,” David plants his fists on his hips. “I could see where that would be extremely not fun for you.”

“And I never wanted to be the kind of person who just took from you,” Patrick goes on, resuming his slow advance toward David. “I know there were people who…who did that, before, and I – I don’t want it to ever be like that, between us."

“Okay,” David says softly. He blinks several times to clear the sudden wetness from his eyes. “So, um, how do you want it to be, between us?”

“I want to give as much as I take,” Patrick tells him, his voice falling softer to match David’s as he finally, finally comes close enough for David to reach out and touch him. “And I want you to do the same. Does that sound okay?”

David laughs, wrapping his arms around Patrick’s neck as Patrick’s hands come up to grip his waist.

“I think I would be amenable to those terms, yes,” David says, and leans in to meet Patrick’s mouth in their first official non-magically induced kiss. They’re practiced enough at it now that it shouldn’t feel new, but it does. Patrick’s mouth is perfect against his own, his fingertips clutching and releasing David’s waist over and over like he isn’t sure where to put his nervous energy. Patrick had never been nervous to kiss him before, David realizes, and the thought of it has him sighing into the kiss. He thinks he likes it better this way, knowing he makes Patrick as nervous as Patrick makes him.

Patrick pulls away a moment later, pressing a chaste peck to David’s jaw as he wraps him up in a hug. 

“Wow,” Patrick breathes onto his shoulder. “That’s so much better when it’s just me. No spell, no compulsion. Just me kissing you the way I want to.”

“Have I apologized for the very small role that I played in the whole spell situation?” David says, running his hands down Patrick’s back.

“It’s okay, David,” Patrick says. “You can make it up to me.” And David does. 

**Author's Note:**

> Idek, y’all. This just sprang fully-formed from my head like Athena from Zeus, like some kind of fever dream. While I was writing it I was like, does the world really need another “accidental witchery leads to compulsive making out between two idiots who don’t know they’re in love" fic? But then I realized that I’ve read this trope dozens of times & fucking loved it every time so…yes, yes the world does need it. Hope you like it? 
> 
> \+ The dream David has about the talking dog saving him from an alien invasion is actually a recurring dream of mine. Sometimes the aliens are zombies. *shrugs*
> 
> \+ Helga is named after the grandma from the 1990 classic The Witches; the reference to turning David into a mouse is also from that film. The reference to giving him a pig face is from Penelope, and the reference to David and Patrick being cursed to be a wolf and a hawk respectively is from Ladyhawke. Please watch all these movies if you haven’t already; they’re wild. 
> 
> \+ Title is from “This Kiss” by Faith Hill, because the Practical Magic soundtrack is everything.
> 
> I'm dinnfameron on tumblr come yell at me about these two idiots~


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